


Sink or Swim (How to Drown on Dry Land)

by ifdragonscouldtalk



Series: Whumptober 2019 [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drowning, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Poor Spock, Spock-centric, Vulnerable Spock, Whump, Whumptober 2019, spock whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 03:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifdragonscouldtalk/pseuds/ifdragonscouldtalk
Summary: The push of the cold water against his open eyes stung, painfully, his aching head struggling to keep up with the sudden change in pressure and temperature, and it was instinct that kept his mouth and nose closed from taking in any of the water. He had only gotten half a breath before they’d thrown him in, and although Vulcans had a greater lung capacity than Humans, it didn’t matter if he couldn’t save himself. He let the bubbles out slowly, knowing the buildup of carbon dioxide in the lungs was often what made the increased pressure in the chest which led to a breath full of water, and made an effort to keep himself calm.He never did seem to realize he was sinking until it was already over his head.He had realized too late his mother was sinking, realized too late that he was compromised, too late, too late, too late, sinking deeper and deeper. It had taken him too long to learn how to swim.





	Sink or Swim (How to Drown on Dry Land)

**Author's Note:**

> Day 13 (alternate): Breathless 
> 
> Warnings: Depictions of drowning, hints of depressive thoughts, mentions of violence and xenophobia

Spock never seemed to realize he was sinking until he’d already drowned. 

The push of the cold water against his open eyes stung, painfully, his aching head struggling to keep up with the sudden change in pressure and temperature, and it was instinct that kept his mouth and nose closed from taking in any of the water. He had only gotten half a breath before they’d thrown him in, and although Vulcans had a greater lung capacity than Humans, it didn’t matter if he couldn’t save himself. He let the bubbles out slowly, knowing the buildup of carbon dioxide in the lungs was often what made the increased pressure in the chest which led to a breath full of water, and made an effort to keep himself calm. 

Not much effort was needed. 

He didn’t know how many times he had been hit over the head, but green was staining the water around him, obscuring his view of dark nothingness and making his eyes sting even worse. Everything had been fuzzy and chilled even before he had fell in the water, and he found it hard to bring up any coherent thought other than a foreboding sense of shaking disappointment, and the image of the Captain’s face when he didn’t appear at the appropriate rendevous. By then, it would be too late for Spock, and the idea of the devastation those on the ship would feel about his strange disappearance was almost comforting, knowing they cared, except he wished they didn’t have to feel that way. 

He didn’t have the coordination to do much more than try and tread water, and since he was already sinking and his feet were tied to the two 12 packs of alcohol the men had been carrying, it wasn’t helpful. 

Vulcans didn’t like water. It was an illogical distrust -- even Surak’s teachings could not erase some things, and centuries of evolutionary biology and superstition was one of those things. Old Vulcan had been all desert, most of its water underground or sprinkles of rainfall that drifted down from the icy poles. Large bodies of water were shrouded in distrust, in what could be waiting in those depths or guarding the precious resource, in whether it was true or simply a trick of the heat and the brain. As such, Vulcans generally didn’t learn how to swim. 

Spock had never learned either. His mother had tried to teach him, had reminisced about beaches and pools on Terran, but it was the one thing he had denied her, in his younger childhood. His distrust of water, illogical but inherited, bordered on outright fear. He was no longer afraid, could not be, really, considering all he had traveled and done, and he had learned to swim well enough on his travels, though he wouldn’t be winning any marathons. The fact that he would die here, so far away from the planet he was now supposed to call home, so far removed from that environment which spawned that fear, drowning in the fear itself; it was almost ironic. 

He never did seem to realize he was sinking until it was already over his head. 

He had realized too late his mother was sinking, realized too late that he was compromised, too late, too late, too late, sinking deeper and deeper. It had taken him too long to learn how to swim. 

And now, he couldn’t swim at all. 

He couldn’t hold his breath any longer, his brain feeling like it was pushing against his skull from the inside out, black spots marring his darkened vision of the green water around him. Reflexively, he breathed in, and instinct to try and keep him alive, against his will, and conversely to its purpose, it was going to kill him. 

The water entered his lungs and he tried to cough it back out, an uncontrollable reaction, only succeeding in allowing more water to enter them. Aside from the initial burn of water in his nose and throat, painful and unwanted, it didn’t hurt, really. His head stopped aching, his arms went limp, stopped trying to drag against the painful pull of the weights on his feet, his chest no longer burned with need, his skin no longer felt cold. He wondered how deep the water was, if he’d not already touched the bottom. He hadn’t thought the sea was so deep, this close to the docks, but he must have been incorrect. 

It was rare that he was incorrect. So rare that the Humans on the  _ Enterprise _ , and Captain Kirk especially, seemed to think that he was a clairvoyant of some sort, that he would always be able to steer them in the right direction and make sure they all came out safe. But he was not a captain, and had never truly wanted to be, and he was not clairvoyant. If he was, he would have known not to walk alone to return to the ship tonight when Leonard and Jim had wandered off, drunk, and left him alone and uncomfortable in the bar. He would have known not to take the path near the pier, even though it was almost impossible to avoid the water in the city, given that the starbase had been built on a large island in the middle of the sea. He would have known several drunk xenophobes were along his path, retrieving more alcohol for their inebriated pleasure, would have known they would become violent with him, would have known they would find a better use for their newly acquired gains than drinking them, like weighing down the body of an alien they could not seem to abide by. 

Would have known they would recognize him. 

Would have known they would blame him for genocide. 

(Would be able to admit to himself that he thought the same.)

His lungs weren’t moving anymore, diaphragm heavy and thick with the weight of water pushing down on it, and his heartbeat was far too slow, but it didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. Everything was numb, now, no pain in his head or in his heart, metaphorical or physical. He thought of his mother, and how saddened she would be, of Jim and Leonard, how they would blame themselves, and only felt a twinge of regret. He was certain there were tears in his eyes, but everything was so waterlogged no one would ever be able to determine that he had cried in his last moments. 

He was numb. 

He never did realize he was sinking until he’d already drowned. 

He never did realize he was rising until his head finally broke the water. 

Hands had fisted in his shirt, his civilian shirt, because Leonard and Jim had insisted that he not wear his uniform to a bar with them, and yanked against him. Four hands, two pairs, presumably two people, if they were both two armed. His shirt pulled uncomfortably around his neck, but given that he was no longer breathing and his skin was numb from cold, it didn’t matter. He blinked slowly, uselessly, he would be unconscious soon as his brain depleted its final oxygen reserves and shut down, his heart following quickly when it stopped trying to pump liquid from his lungs through his circulatory system. Ironic, really, that he could be surrounded by and breathing in a compound rich with oxygen, and still drown in it. He didn’t realize the hands were pulling him up until his head broke the surface of the water and air hit his nose, begging him to begin coughing. He didn’t have the strength, his mouth hanging open as water ran from his mouth and nose, not dispelled from his lungs but trickling from his throat, his nasal passageways. 

A hand, painful and rough, hitting and rubbing at his sternum, pain erupting again through his body, that numbness fading. Only panic and cold and pain, now, and he was gagging, coughing desperately as water was ejected forcefully by his diaphragm, spasming, forced into working by outside interference. The water was roaring in his ears, or maybe that was blood, and if he had eaten at the bar he was sure that would have come up as well. Despite being mostly free from water, now, he couldn’t catch is breath, clinging desperately to the two who had saved him, terrified of that weight still dragging at his feet, and he thought his rescuers were talking to him but it was distant and unimportant and he was still on the verge of unconsciousness. Two of the hands disappeared, and then the weight on his feet, and the hands were back. 

He wondered if he was losing time. 

He was on the pier, now, and Jim and Leonard were above him, both talking, both looking at him with worry. 

He never had been able to realize he was rising until he finally broke water. 

Maybe it was because he could never accept that he needed the help they willingly gave. 

“Spock? Damn it, man, are you with us?!” Leonard, looking remarkably sober considering an hour ago Spock had watched him stumble over air on the way to the rest room, still patting too hard at his chest, making more coughs erupt from him. 

He let his eyes slide closed, even though they were both yelling for him to stay awake. Maybe he never realized he was sinking, but he could trust them to help him swim. 


End file.
